Amazon’s Alexa is Sparking a New Era of Interaction
“Don’t believe me? Just talk.” - Bruno Mars... Maybe?
This week, the concept of the public sphere and civil society came up in a conversation… And, boy, let me tell you that if Alan McKee is correct about the five concerns of our changing public sphere, this could be a doozy.
I should explain… The next big thing is making an expeditious debut to a new era of interaction. Drawing parallels from the mid-century television era, the introduction of voice-primary user interfaces (like Alexa and Siri) are on the verge of completely changing how we interact as a society.
It’s a bold statement packed with expert endorsement: many are predicting that 2018 will be the year that voice-focused technology will become a primary interface in many households around the world. As marketers and communications professionals—and, of course, as consumers—we are witnessing the shift from a technology once considered novel (see: Apple’s Siri circa 2011, a year when we could only switch the song and ask for the time, both of which were only seen to completion with moderate success at best) to what is quickly becoming commonplace technologies that we’re actually relying on in our everyday lives.
As these technologies are made increasingly accessible and more prevalent, we are beginning to see the characterization of a completely new era of interaction and inter-connectivity. Amazon’s Alexa is the perfect example of this: this voice-primary user interface is already changing our day-to-day activities and behaviours by freeing up time for us while acting as an AI assistant and keeping us virtually hands-free in what has formally been a very tactile world. The advancement of conversation processing technology in recent years has made these interfaces so slick it can dim our lights for us, create to-do lists, check the weather, browse the web, and even order our groceries straight to our door. In fact, as of July, Alexa has 15,000 skills (see the full fun-filled list here). All the tasks are initiated by the user simply speaking to the device.
So, how does this change how we interact as a society? Well, the implications cannot fully be known just yet; however, based on Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman’s work in Media Ecology Theory, we can predict certain characterizations.
For example, during the television era, we saw a society that used hearing as the primary sense. The constant consumption of entertainment via television as a prevalent interface meant that society expected to be unceasingly amused—as a result nearly every institution had to follow suit. If this model translates to 2018 (and I assure you that it does… With backup from my friend Neil Postman*), the proliferation of voice-primary user interfaces like Alexa will spark a change in how we will all interact going forward.
And if that’s not enough justification for you, I’ll let Amazon put their money where my mouth is: last week, the $427 Billion USD company announced that it’s turning to Alexa and asking it to build a big digital advertising business. Essentially, Amazon is about to turn Alexa into the next Google Adwords where users will listen to advertisements during voice-powered shopping experiences… And it’s working. Early reports indicate that marketers might actually pay more for these audible ads because, with Amazon’s consumer behaviour and shopping history insights, brands will have a more robust ability to target and convert potential customers through Alexa’s suggestions. Consumer product giant Procter & Gamble is already working diligently to strike a deal with Amazon in the early stages. If this all comes to fruition, imagine how our day-to-day lives will change? Is it all too trivialized? Too commercialized? If we take Habermas’ definition of the public sphere, as indicated in An Introduction to the Public Sphere by Alan McKee, this interface would be considered a public sphere in its own right. It’s not far off to suggest that what is essentially a 6 inch ‘smart’ speaker will choose which products you use in your home every day based on your previous orders and paid brand suggestions just from you talking to it. In the meantime, I await the Black Mirror episode on this.
*Neil Postman is not actually my friend. Although, I wish he was.